


the (con)art of love

by Still_sleepless



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Clubbing, Denial of Feelings, First Meetings, Heartbreak, M/M, Meet-Cute, Non-Linear Narrative, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_sleepless/pseuds/Still_sleepless
Summary: In between smoke clouds and the heat of summer, Jaemin finds Jeno.OrThere are many sides to love. Jaemin and Jeno know them all.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Kudos: 6





	the (con)art of love

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to post a one-shot recently so I came up with this. It's a mixture of prose and poetry. 
> 
> Also, I'm really proud of the title haha.

_i. (Jaemin)_  
This feeling is delicate, stretched tight, Jaemin knows. The air is heavy and the lights flash like sirens, watermelon pink and forest greens sweeping over him. He briefly catches his reflection, and sees the powder on his cheeks in their national colours, bold swipes cut quick across his cheekbones in a way that makes him pause. He doesn't look like himself. Instead he looks sharper, more feline and Jaemin only gets moving again when he feels a hand on his shoulder, pushing forward through the crowd.

Mark is almost like a mirror image, same shirt and bandana adorning his forward, except while Jaemin's hair is stark black, Mark's is a vibrant blue, standing out in even this shitty lighting. Together they move forward, edging towards the bar and quickly occupying the only empty stools.

The 2002 world cup is over. Brazil took 1st place.

For a time, it had seemed like the country was frozen, forty-seven million people collectively holding their breaths. Then the moment was lost to the sands of the universe. Turkey beat them. There was no coming back from that and the magic which had been cast dissipated. 

Jaemin didn't harbour any resentment and enjoyed the subsequent matches until today and now the World Cup is over and even with a loss, the country is rejoicing, a buzz of elation sweeping through every street and every household. 

It's then, as Mark orders at the bar, that a hush falls over the bar, silence accompanied by the strum of a guitar that pulls at their attention and has Jaemin twisting in his seat to see the stage.

This is the moment where everything changes, the one that can't be taken back. Jaemin locks eyes with a man that knocks the wind out of his lungs, and _really,_ he'll regret this. He will. He just doesn't know it yet.

_ii. (Jeno)_  
There's a tell-tale colour of red burning up the other's ears - Jaemin, he had said his name was Jaemin - eyes uncertain and shifting hesitantly from Jeno's face to the bartender who's pretending not to eavesdrop. 

It's not a lot but it's enough.

"Do you wanna head out of here?" Jeno says quietly, the alcohol running laps through his blood content. Jaemin's eyes sparkle mischievously even through the glaze of cheap beer and low-lighting.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Jeno grins something sharp and volatile, jaw set in hard lines and they stumble out hand in hand.

The half-moon watches overhead, a guard to guide them home between the teetering building and twisting roads rimmed with black thorns.

_iii. (Jaemin)_  
_Me and you._ We're stuck between the lines of happiness and inferiority, dancing just out of sight and slowly drifting further and further away from each other. We're giving into the darkness, into the copious amounts of darkness and the endless cold of the universe. _Me and you, darling._ Forever and forevermore. Until forever runs out and time is merely just a construct that binds our limbs, keeps us solid on this plain of existence. 

You're one half of happiness. It's a pity I've misplaced the other half.

_iv. (Jeno)_  
It's not that I love him -

Though I do, of course. Love him - I mean. I love him _only enough_ to know that I love him, to think the words and feel a flush of acceptance wrap itself around the feeling. But it's not yet an all encompassing love, nothing that would tinge my days in blue, nor lead my choices down fallowed hallways.

It's the fact that I don't love him in such a way - the way that people do in songs and movies, fast and untethered - that causes me to worry that maybe one step too close is already a bad idea.

  
_v. (Jaemin)_  
Jaemin looks at Jeno with eyes that are made of water, eternally sad through the mist of tears and he bangs on the doors, wanting to be let out because this is a room without windows and he wants to be outside, where there is light that might bring with it warmth but the door is no longer a door. It's the opening to a heart. It's a ribcage.

A heart is only as strong as the person it beats for but a heart knows _not_ who it beats for. This must mean that a heart is really a bird in a cage, wings fluttering against the iron like the blood that I can hear right now, the blood in you which has nowhere to go but _out_. 

Jaemin wants - needs to go _out_ but if a heart is simply a bird in a cage then Jaemin is only blood in broken veins.

What does that make Jeno?

It makes him a room. It makes him the spot in the trees that can't be seen from the ground. It makes him Nothing Important.

What do you do with Nothing Important? 

Jaemin kisses Nothing Important through the tears and when the fog clears, there are windows to see the sky in and a door to walk out through but Nothing Important is no longer under the palms of his hands.

Suddenly, Jaemin realises that he'd rather be trapped in an airless room than have to go and find Nothing Important all over again.

  
_vi. (Jeno)_  
You steal from me as I steal from you. I steal the breath from your lungs while you steal the thoughts from my head. _Is this love?_ Say it is and I'll thank you for it. My conscience can't give you faith but I'll give you hope if you so much as ask.

 _Please_ ask.

Instead, you ask me to call you my _forever boy._ In my haste to please you, I forget to tell you that forever is a fairy tale for people like us.

  
_vii. (Jaemin)_  
These punctured lungs cannot breathe anymore, more paper than tissue, and the tense movement of _inhaling/exhaling_ is only a fragment of what was, a mere muscle memory.

I am a bygone from the era where you still looked at me and something other than a stillborn body.

The clock keeps ticking, the earth keeps spinning and you keep dangling me along on a string. These are the three constants I've come to count my days with. I loathe you even as my mouth paints praise against your skin. 

We all have our flaws. You are mine.

_viii. (Jeno)_  
Jeno holds the weight of his sins with a tentative strength, one that's unlikely to last. 

He lets go on the last day of May.


End file.
